


but only the violet souls

by sungjoos (iverins)



Category: UNIQ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dysfunctional Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 13:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6856051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iverins/pseuds/sungjoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sungjoo and Wenhan talk, but don't really say anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but only the violet souls

The first thing Sungjoo thinks when he thinks about Wenhan is his fist meeting the side of his face, the taste of blood when he licked the roof of his mouth, gravel scraping against his cheek. Thought he could get a punch or two in, hell, maybe even a kick, before it was over, and it already was. A ringing in his right ear, gentle at first, then more and more persistent, until it was all he could really hear.

But before that – the sound of Wenhan spitting out _mother_ fucker.

 

 

At their school, there aren’t _those_ kinds of guys or _these_ kinds of girls: there are just students, all from similar backgrounds. Upper middle class, who come to school every day with clean, ironed uniforms and nice brand name shoes that three quarters of the student body all have identical pairs of. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of faces, to pass by somebody you know without noticing them until they call out your name at the last possible second, or not notice them at all. 

It’s somehow easy for Sungjoo to spot Wenhan in the crowd, hallway flooded with too many bodies and unfamiliar faces that the familiar faces Sungjoo knows stick out to him like sore thumbs. 

Wenhan wouldn’t call his name at the last possible second. They make eye contact. Neither of them looks away until they have to crane their necks to keep looking at each other, and that’s when the moment ends.

 

 

Wenhan has rough fingertips and palms. Sungjoo feels them sometimes when Wenhan pushes his hand into his face when he spaces out on him. 

“What did I just say, Sungjoo?” he challenges. Yixuan laughs beside them on the odd days he eats with them instead of in the student council office. “What did I just say, Sungjoo?” he repeats again, tough resolve breaking with the smile that’s starting on his face. 

“Fuck you!” Sungjoo laughs into his face as Wenhan pushes him onto the grass, slapping his cheeks with his palms – lighter than he expected. Sometimes Sungjoo wonders why Wenhan’s palms feel like sandpaper. Most times, he’s thinking about how to get Wenhan to tap out.

 

 

“So what’s after high school for you?”

Wenhan turns to look at him. Neighborhoods tinted orange from the sunset blur into one another outside the window behind his head. Wenhan’s recently cut his hair, so that the sides are shorter than before. He smells like the chlorine of the swimming pool, like the scent didn’t come off after showering the night before. 

He tilts his head slightly, considering. Sungjoo waits. “Uni, I guess. Then a job. You know, the boring adult stuff. Responsibilities and all. Marriage, kids, maybe. Waking up one day when I’m fifty and wondering where my life went.”

Sungjoo hums in response. The late afternoon sunlight cards through Wenhan’s hair. “Sounds exciting.”

“Shut the fuck up.” There’s no bite to it, though.

 

 

There’s a bruise blooming on the side of his face when he looks in the mirror the next morning. A nasty, raw red, dark at the center. Tender to the touch.

Sungjoo thinks of Wenhan as he prods at it with his fingers. Wenhan and his perpetual chlorine smell mixed with detergent and sweat and soap, all rough hands and lit up eyes, gravel against the side of his face as he goes down, hears a watery breath like he’s crying and _mother_ fucker, gone before Sungjoo can get up.

“Asshole,” Sungjoo whispers as he prods at it again, laughing even though it stings. The laughter sounds hollow in the bathroom, the acoustics too good. It amplifies the emptiness and the arbitrary tragedy of it all.

 

 

Yixuan tells him after class. “I told him to apologize. Has he?”

Sungjoo shrugs. “Obviously not.” The words come out small through gritted teeth. Sungjoo doesn’t feel as bitter as he sounds. 

Yixuan waits as he collects his books. “You know,” he starts once Sungjoo’s got his messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “I wish you’d stop expecting things of him.”

“I’m not.” There’s a goddamn bruise on the side of his face, a most unpalatable shade of blue, and he still tastes the vicarious salt of his blood between his teeth every time his mind goes on default. A blur of eyes, the faint smell of chlorine everywhere now, then nothing at all. 

Pushes his chair in. “I don’t.”

 

 

Wenhan pushes him against the fence. It shakes behind Sungjoo’s back, digs diamonds of rust onto the back of the white shirt of his uniform. Both their chins are up. 

“So what are you gonna do?” Sungjoo taunts. Wenhan hits the fence beside his head, eyes not looking at him. It starts shaking violently again. His hair is still wet from the pool, water droplets dripping down the sides of his neck, chlorine smell everywhere. “What’re you gonna do, huh?”

Sandpaper fingertips against his cheeks, gentle enough to be carved into by rivers. Their teeth collide rather unpleasantly but his lips are soft, covering his own. For a breath, and then a breath more, shared between their hungry mouths, they stay like that, only their lips touching. 

Unlike his hands, Wenhan's lips are soft.

 

 

“Hey.” Volume 7, 8, 9. Sungjoo keeps pressing the button.

“Hey.” One of the earbuds is ripped out of his ears. Slowly, Sungjoo turns to look at him. The same unreadable expression mirrors his own. Bruised cheek reflects an unmarred one, averted eyes and chins pointed into bodies on both sides. The sharp scent of chlorine is noticeably absent. Swimming season’s over, Sungjoo remembers belatedly. Swimming season’s over.

The lights signaling that the train is coming begin to flash. Wenhan puts Sungjoo’s earbud in his ear. “I like this song,” he says, after a moment of silence.

“Oh.” The train blurs to a stop before them. It lifts the strands of their hair, Wenhan’s longer than when Sungjoo saw him last. “Me too.”

There’s a tentative smile hanging on the corners of Wenhan’s mouth as they take their seats. Next to each other. “That’s nice,” he replies. 

Sungjoo doesn’t think about the way Wenhan’s lips curve up, and about how unlike his hands, they are soft. About the way they breathed together, sandpaper fingertips ticklish against his cheek, about whether or not Wenhan will trace those fingertips against the bruise in full bloom on his face like the way he imagined in front of his bathroom mirror, laughing a hollow laugh. Sungjoo doesn’t think about any of it.

“Asshole.” There’s no bite to it, though. There isn’t anything but neighborhoods tinted orange blurring into one another and a thin cable between them in the otherwise empty train car. The only thing connecting them in this moment is a song they both don’t even like, coming to an end.


End file.
